Astrology of 8/30 – 9/5: Martial Zen

This week we are leading up to a Full Moon in Pisces (on the 6th), so our lunar energy is growing. Mercury retrograde will re-enter Leo before stationing direct on the 5th. Mars and Mercury will join up in Leo and shortly after, Mars will enter a sign of Mercury’s rulership, Virgo. In many ways this is a fast-paced, busy, Mercurial kind of week and amidst its potential excitement, our nervous systems may also need some extra TLC to keep up with it! In my experience reading charts, there’s been a high correlation between individuals who are acupuncturists, massage therapists, or herbalists, who have an emphasized Mercury-Mars or Mercury-Mars-Uranus signature (or things like Virgo rising, Mars in the 6th or 11th house, Mercury in the 1st or 11th, etc.) But this is just our general planetary mood this week: a willfulness to narrow in on small details and refine them, to put some muscle into them. A martial kind of zen when showing up for life tasks. Revelations and downloads that stream in while doing the dishes or doing that annoying chore you really didn’t want to do but somehow holds a key. Which brings us to another potential of the week, which is confronting our avoidance tactics. What threatens us and makes us want to give up? It’s too much? This is the tension. But see where facing necessary steps vitalizes you with as much gusto as it would give you anxiety not to. (Top image: Sarah Jerrett)

It is interesting that this should all align before a Full Moon in Pisces, signifying that while we may become extra aware of what kinds of maintenance, improvement our lives need: where things feel out of alignment to say the least and crisis at the most — we realize that these tasks and details are not endpoints in themselves. What is the spiritual fabric connecting all of it, or the spiritual waters that birthed all of these material forms? If we are to directly connect our spirituality, or our sense of centered wellbeing, with the perpetual tasks that life asks of us, we find an embodied sense of peace, and a clarity in just which step to take. More than that, we find that these tasks and the basic maintenance of life are zenlike portals. More on the week within, after an announcement:

“Astrology is a language. If you understand this language,

the sky speaks to you.”―Dane Rudhyar

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Here’s our week:

August 31

Mercury enters Leo: 8:29 AM PDT

At the time of this re-entrance from retrograding Mercury, the Moon in Capricorn will be tightly conjunct Pluto.

Mercury has a cataloguing function – picking up information and streams of data. On an inner-level, this can mean for us that Mercury in Virgo was cataloguing information about how to refine and craft life. This could have correlated with stress and anxiety however, about things not being good enough, not perfect. When Mercury re-enters Leo it gives us another chance to review the games and play that inspire us. If you think to how children are motivated to do things that seem fun, and how things that we judge as not fun can be turned into games and made into fun, you can see Leo’s imagination at play. If there’s an area of life that you’re a little strung out right now, it may be time to make a game of it so that you can change your thinking and effectively cope/thrive with that difficulty.

A reminder that engaging our creativity is a way to on a holographic level, embody Creation. Whatever you perceive that force as, whatever your relationship to Source…. little creation and big Creation harmonize, especially at a juncture like this. We’re reminded of our ability to animate our own experiences. So practically what does this mean? Seeing advancements and changes in your life because you take creative action, because you birth or bring something into existence. Starting to notice things lining up or synchronicity occurring more frequently when you do so.

Mars in Leo and Uranus in Aries aligning here can speak as well to our willfulness to play pretend in such a way that it levels us up. In a future vision of who you are… how does present-you play with life to be that future now? This is freedom – to play the role now, in the way that it presents itself, with what opportunities and resources you do have.

Mercury-Mars conjunctions often correlate with speaking ahead of oneself, impulsive speech, or things coming out more aggressively than we mean. So because it’s Leo, watch for impulsive displays of ego, which may arise locally in situations where there is a disparity in how seen/recognized one feels. That can be the communication block.

This can also speak to the potential to be more generous or courageous with one’s speech, to share. We might find ourselves in the company of people or in circumstances where getting ahead of ourselves is something we’re refreshingly free to do and it’s a lot of fun.

An arch of frustration or vitality in terms of communication and the ability or inability to express something. Finding small adjustments or tools that help greatly.

September 4

Sun in 12 Virgo opposite Neptune in 12 Pisces: 10:28 PM PDT

At this time, expectations of oneself to be perfect would be a source of disillusionment. There is not an arrival point right now; life is a multidimensional package of storylines at different phases of completion. Focus instead on the process and the ways that real steps and actions you take are energetic portals for the dream that Neptune represents to come through. Taking steps = magic. A point of intelligence here is being sensitive to which steps are open for walking, which steps will open up the sequence that you are looking for. But, rather than looking farther ahead than can be seen beyond the fog, becoming super present with what task is available at hand and recognizing that it is far more worthy than being overlooked.

An opportunity to recognize that since in reality everything is interconnected, the path itself is also multidimensional and non-linear. Basic life things like taking out the trash are part of the same fabric as designing a multi-phased business plan, and these tasks are part of the same fabric as falling in love with someone or gaining accelerated insight about your dharma. Neptune does not discriminate! Virgo does. So check your balance with these two. Are you so up in the clouds and dreaming but nothing is happening because you are not attending to the portals on Earth to connect you to that dream, like showing up for basic life stuff? Or are you so on the earth plane that you could benefit from turning basic tasks into simultaneous prayer?

We only do so much, with tangible reality, and we are met by the intangible. Surrendering is part of this wisdom. Show up, surrender… or in other words, do your part and see what happens.

I’ve been catching a theme as we approach a Pisces Full Moon – that is that forgiveness is, it exists, like a place one can always go to. There is often something wrong or out of alignment but picking at it is just picking. In itself this kind of picking/criticism can be motivated by a fundamental sense of lack or imperfection so there will never be a resolution. Sometimes the transformation or the alignment that is desired happens because forgiveness has been accessed. In religion or spiritual practices there are many paths to accessing forgiveness. But it is also something we can access like ✨ just by choosing to or even praying for the ability to forgive. (Just another way to draw closer to it.) We can play pretend until we really do forgive whatever it is that is triggering us. But what strikes me about forgiveness now at this moment is that it calms everything down. Where once everything was wrong, everything becomes okay and the path clears. It is actually such a balancing act to combine attendance to life and all the ways it feels out of alignment, with forgiveness and unconditional love. I like to think about plants in a garden, it’s not our impulse to yell at them for not growing well enough, we try to figure out how to facilitate their thrival and we treat them kindly. Such is life.

Speaking of “tasks” so much this week with all this Mercury astro – Mars in Virgo is like a task athlete. But there are some nuances to address. Mars can speak to our vitality and engagement as well as our defense mechanisms. When Mars is in Virgo, there is an entire spectrum of actively showing up or being avoidant and procrastinating. Pay attention to what feels threatening to you in such a way that you want to avoid it. Take measure that you’re not avoiding things and procrastinating as a defense – because addressing that same thing could actually be a route to vitality.

Mars in Virgo can be very discerning here, helping guide us toward how to direct our energy. Be sensitive toward your intuition, as much as you push yourself to challenge your comfort zone. Leaning in is not always comfortable, but as I mentioned – it’s vitalizing! This transit can be a boost of courage to face what it is you are avoiding.

Mercury stations direct in 28 Leo: 4:30 AM PDT

Mercury stations direct in the same degree that the Solar Eclipse occurred in… I mean, you saw everyone watching it with glasses and posting about it to social media! Or you were watching it with glasses on. That is only one fractal of the storyline of this eclipse and its impact. So… are you getting the memo? Watch for reoccurring messages of what is wanting to emerge/come through in your life on the creative plane. There is a lot of trauma we have as individuals, and in the collective. One way we lift ourselves out of these patterns and fixed reactions to triggers is to create. To make art. To birth something. Think about how you are being called to embody your inner nobility at this time. What is dignified in you? How does it want to radiate? Offer it.

Sabrina Monarch is a soul-centered Evolutionary Astrologer who publishes weekly astrological forecasts. She has been collecting astrological experience for over a decade. She also enjoys kundalini and ashtanga yoga, hiking and creative writing.